And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life. It is mine. I made it. I can do what I want to with it.

© Penguin Press

Upstream
By Mary Oliver

"And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life. It is mine. I made it. I can do what I want to with it. Live it. Give it back, someday, without bitterness, to the wild and weedy dunes."
(pp. 21-2)

"The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time."
(p. 30)